Legal document: Bodl. MS heb. c 28/14

Description

Engagement (shiddukhin) contract for a second wife. Location: Fustat. Dating: ca. 1165–66 CE, as the reshut clause invokes the Gaʾon Netanʾel ha-Levi (1160–66) and the document is written in the hand of the court scribe Shemuel b. Seʿadya ha-Levi (active 1165–1203). Manṣūr b. Makārim of Bilbays, already the husband of a woman named ʿAmāʾim, came before the court (probably in Fustat or Cairo) together with Abū Naṣr b. Abū Saʿīd, the half-brother (shared mother) of a woman named Maʿālī. Together the two men agree on the conditions for Manṣūr's marriage to Maʿālī. (1) Maʿālī will have her own apartment, not shared with ʿAmāʾim. (2) Manṣūr will not take a third wife. (3) Maʿālī will live with Manṣūr's daughter Milāḥ, likely the daughter of ʿAmāʾim (Goitein speculated that ʿAmāʾim must have suffered from a physical or mental illness preventing her from taking care of her own daughter). (4) Marriage payments: 2 + 15 = 17 dinars. (Information from M. A. Friedman's edition.)